ABSTRACT
The analysis of the Armed Forces as a leading actor in the political system is essential to understand Argentine politics in the twentieth century. Fundamentally, after the coup of 1930, they positioned themselves as a moral elite representative of the general interest, with a narrative closely connected to the right-wing world. However, this alleged suprapolitical unity has coexisted with the configuration of different military fractions linked to different political-ideological traditions such as liberalism, conservative or nationalism. The chapter analyses how these political-ideological tensions were expressed during the last Argentine civic-military dictatorship (1976–1983) through General Videla and Admiral Massera, members of the Military Junta and Commanders of the Army and the Navy, respectively, and the Ministers of Economy, Martínez de Hoz, and of Planning, Díaz Bessone. This work is based on three premises: (a) the last dictatorship constituted a privileged space in which to appreciate these tensions, a consequence of the total involvement of the Armed Forces in the exercise of power; (b) these same tensions conspired against several of his targets of maximum; (c) the self-appointed process constitutes a breaking point of the political-ideological traditions that had remained relatively stable, which will generate a reconfiguration in the local right.
